Run Lola Run, for the most part, does exactly what it says on the tin. Its about a girl called Lola (Franka Potente), and she runs a lot. Thats not to say it doesnt have its share of unsettling moments. For example, theres the bit where a passer-by offers to sell her his bicycle, and for a horrible second it looks like she might accept. And then theres the bit where shes going along a corridor inside the bank, and it becomes more a case of Brisk Walk Lola Brisk Walk. And sometimes  only sometimes, mind  they substitute actual Lola running for poorly-animated Lola running, and that just isnt on. Suffice to say, the bits where shes not running are rubbish, and left me feeling short-changed. Thankfully, theyre few and far between.

So, wheres she running to then? Well, if you show a bit of patience, youll see I was just coming to that. At the start of the film, she receives a phone-call from her idiot boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu). Hes been indulging in some dirty-dealings, and is supposed to deliver 100,000 Deutsche Marks to a local crim  only the daft buggers gone and left the whole lot on the train, and now its been nicked by a homeless. So Lola, instead of doing the sensible thing and making an analogy about making your bed and lying in it, decides to try to find a replacement stash, sprint across town, and give it to her beloved plonker  and all in about 20 minutes.

Girlies, of course, cant run properly, so it all proves to be quite a task for our Lola. To make things even tougher, the whole things repeated three times over, as writer-director Tom Tykwer attempts to show how the smallest of alterations to events can massively affect the entire outcome. And, as youd expect from a German film, its ruthlessly efficient, squeezing all of that and more into little over 80 minutes.

Its all too easy to think of Germany as only being about outdated Europop, stable currency and a deep, deep love of David Hasselhoff – but Run Lola Run proves that it also possesses the talent to be a breeding ground for innovative, exciting and above-all fun cinema. This might not be the deepest film ever made, but what it boils down to is a good, solid bit of entertainment which also manages to be highly original. Thats got to make it something of a rarity in this day and age.

It's Got: A diabolical advertisement for the quality of German policing.

It Needs: To dump the animated bits  thankfully, theres not many of them.